Wizardry, Wizardry Gold, Wizardry VII and Crusaders of the Dark Savant are registered
    trademarks of Sir-Tech software, Inc. Reg'd TM in Canada and other countries. Crusaders
    of the Dark Savant and Wizardry Gold application software are copyright by Sir-Tech
    software, Inc. and D.W. Bradley.
 

                            WizEdit is copyright 1998 by Software Specialties.

                                Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Thanks
1.2 Disclaimer
1.3 System Requirements
1.4 Copyright notice
1.5 Gold vs. Crusaders
1.6 Intent

2. GETTING STARTED
2.1 About this Document
2.2 Install
2.3 Launch

3. SETTINGS
3.1 Quantity
3.2 Equipped/Not Equipped
3.3 Character Portraits
3.4 Items
3.5 Path

4. CHOOSING YOUR SAVEGAME FILE
4.1 Exiting the Application
4.2 Saving your changes

5. CHARACTER SELECTION
5.1 Base Statistics
5.2 Skills
5.3 Spells
5.4 Items

6. HISTORY

7. HOW TO
7.1 Making a Backup
7.2 Creating a Shortcut
7.3 Giving Different Quantities of Items
7.4 Changing Your Display Settings

1.    INTRODUCTION

1.1  Thanks

To all the people that made this product possible:  

1.2  Disclaimer

This product is provided "as is" without any guarantees or warranty, expressed or implied. Although the author has attempted to find and correct any errors or mistakes, he is not responsible for any damage or losses of any kind caused by the use or misuse of this product or the information in this document. The author is under no obligation to provide service, corrections, or upgrades to this product.

Users are encouraged to send submissions and error fixes to the author, but the author is in no way obligated to utilize these enhancements or implement fixes to the errors.

Note: It is STRONGLY suggested that you make a backup copy of any file you intend to modify, before using this editor (or any other). See Making a Backup in the How To section later in this document for instructions on how to do so.
 
 

1.3  System Requirements

 

1.4  Copyright notice

No portion of this document or software may be separated and distributed separately without the written permission of the author.

This document can not be included in any publication, such as, but not limited to: magazines, books, newspapers or newsletters, or any magnetic media without the written permission of the author.

This software can not be included in any software compilation using magnetic media such as, but not limited to: CD-ROM, tape backup, optical disks, hard disks or floppy disks, without the written permission of the author.

This software can not be recompiled, modified or not, and distributed without the written permission of the author.
 

1.5  Gold vs. Crusaders

Due to differences in the file formats of the graphics files, of Wizardry Gold©  and Crusaders of the Dark Savant©  (CDS), this program is unable to display any of the CDS graphics files.  What does this mean to you, if you are a Wizardry Gold© user - nothing.  But if you are a CDS user, I am sorry to say, you won't see any of the Item icons or the Wizardry® character portraits.  This may change in the future, but for now, I have no way around that limitation.
 

1.6  Intent

It is my intent to provide to you, a utility that is easy to install, easy to use and perhaps a little informative. I have endeavored to make the interface as intuitive as possible. That is to say you should be able to make whatever changes you want to your characters without ever having to read this document.

There are very few things you cannot do with this utility. You can change just about every important statistic about your character, that cannot be easily changed in the game. So rather than list all the things you can do, I'll take the short route and tell you what you cannot do.

You cannot change the MKS (Monster Kill Statistic), sorry I won't lie for you. If you want higher MKS numbers, then go kill more monsters. I won't cure  you or bring you back from the dead – you can do that in the game. And if you cannot, well, then I can be of help there – just go give someone the resurrect spell or cure poison or whatever you need to fix it, in the game. I'm not Scotty, so I won't beam you up (and put you back down somewhere else).

You can, however, heal and rest quickly with this utility.  Simply pressing DONE on the Base Statistics and Spells screens will set the current character's health, stamina and spell points to 100%.  I never intended this to be a feature, it kind of slipped through - you're welcome.

As for other "missing" features, I won't give your character a sex change, and no DNA-splitting or gene-splicing to switch races either. If you need changes that drastic, I suggest you start a new game, with the character types you really want.

So let's get started - with all of the things you can do!
 
 

2.    GETTING STARTED

2.1  About this Document

As I stated before, this thing is easy to use. Of course, that is my opinion and is somewhat biased on two counts: I wrote it and I've played Wizardry® a lot. And even though you probably don't need it, this document is provided as a "quick" overview of how to use this program.

Here are some "conventions" that I have tried to maintain throughout the program and this documentation, for consistency and ease-of-use:

In the documentation, you will notice HYPERLINKS (in the index and the body of this document) that will take you directly to a specific topic or area in the document, by clicking on them. After clicking on the underlined link, the page is repositioned with the referenced topic at the top of the page.  To get back to where you were, RIGHT-CLICK and choose BACK.

SPECIAL NOTE ON LIMITATIONS: I have tried to be as accommodating as possible, anywhere numeric entry is required, even to the point of letting you enter values that are superfluous. By this I mean you can enter 255 for the Strength of one of your characters, but as far as I can tell it behaves no differently than a Strength value of 20, the maximum amount normally attainable in the game. Likewise, Skills values of 255 seem to do no better than those of 100. So, anywhere you find you are limited to a specific range of numbers (0 – 255 for instance) it is due to the physical limitations within either Wizardry® or my application, not a logical limit (i.e. 100).
 
 

2.2  Install

It's easy - just insert your WizEdit© CD into your CD-ROM drive and follow the prompts.  If the CD-ROM does not autostart the WizEdit Setup program, you may launch it through Windows Explorer©.  The file name is: SETUP_WE.exe.  By default, WizEdit© will be installed under your C:\Program Files folder, in a new folder named Software Specialties.

If you desire, you can change the installation directory to any folder you choose.  And just in case you want to know what files will be installed/updated on your machine, here is complete list of the files and the default locations (for Windows® '95/'98 users) that they will be installed to:

Application Files   (installed in C:\Program Files\Software Specialties folder)
WizEdit.exe
WizEdit.htm
WizLogo.jpg
Example1.sgm      (and a few example saved games for you to play around with)
Example2.sgm
Example3.sgm

Visual Basic®/Windows® Support Files  (installed C:\Windows\System folder)
VB40032.dll
MSVCRT20.dll
OLEPRO32.dll
COMCTL32.ocx
VEN2232.dll
CTL3D32.dll
MSVCRT40.dll
TABCTL32.ocx
MFC40.dll
MSJT3032.dll
MSJINT32.dll
VBAJET32.dll
VBDB32.dll
MSRD2X32.dll
MSWNG300.dll
ODBCJT32.dll
ODBCJI32.dll
VBAR2232.dll
MSLT3032.dll
MSPX3032.dll
MSTX3032.dll
MSXB3032.dll

True Type Fonts     (installed in C:\Windows\Fonts folder)
KELMSCOT.ttf

The install process will always overwrite the application files, but only overwrite older versions the Support Files and True Type Fonts files (if they already exist).

 

2.3  Launch

To launch the program:
  1. Go Windows Explorer©
  2. Navigate to the directory that you installed WizEdit© in  (by default, it will install in C:\Program Files\Software Specialties)
  3. Double Click on the entry for WizEdit.exe
or
  1. Press your Start Button (on the Windows® Task Bar)
  2. Select Programs
  3. Select the Folder you installed WizEdit© in   (by default, it will install in the WizEdit folder)
  4. Select the WizEdit entry
If you need further help, see Creating a Short Cut in the How To section later in this document.

After launching the program and pressing CONTINUE, you may want to change some of the default settings. To do so, press SETTINGS.
 
 

3.    SETTINGS

 By default the values of the different settings are as follows:
 
Quantity 250
Equipped/Not Equipped  Equipped
Character Portraits By Profession
Items  Sorted by Like Group
Path (empty)
Please refer to the appropriate section of the document, to learn more about each individual setting.

NOTE:  In the registered/live version of WizEdit©, any changes you make to the default settings are saved and used for subsequent sessions.
 
 

3.1  Quantity

Within the game some items have a quantity associated with them. For instance a quiver may contain up to 250 arrows or an amulet may have 3 charges/uses left. I allow you to change that and choose, 250, Unlimited, or enter your own quantity, and that number/setting will be in effect for any quantified items selected during your session.

If you wish to give a character a quiver of 50 arrows and a potion with 3 uses, you can do so, but it will require two trips to this screen. Once to set the quantity to 50, then after getting the quiver (via the Items screen) once more to set the quantity to 3 (and one more trip to the Items screen to get the potion).

If this leaves you confused, don't worry – see Giving Different Quantities of Items in the How To section later in this document. There you will find a detailed step by step walk through.
 
 

3.2 Equipped/Not Equipped

This setting will allow you to equip any character with any item – regardless of the rules governing race, gender and profession. The total extent to which the "unusable" item is used remains to be seen.

For instance, you can equip any character with the much lauded Cane of Corpus (or two of them if you want), but the damage inflicted and any special attacks (poison, critical, etc.) are still based on the previous item the character was using. So if you replace your Ninja’s Light Sword with an Amber Coin, don't be surprised to see him getting critical hits when he melees that "coin".

The same holds true for armor. Even though you may have given your Fairy Ninja some Plate Mail +3, until you actually go into the game and (try to) equip it, the full effects of that Plate Mail +3 are questionable.

So, if you find looks are more important than function, this option may be for you.
 
 

3.3  Character Portraits

Tired of looking at the same old characters for the last few years? I thought you might be, so I included some original artwork, by Lee Gaskins. Lee's character portraits represent your character based solely on profession, not on race or gender, in lieu of the normal character portraits from Wizardry®. If you prefer to see the standard Wizardry® Gold character portraits, you can do so by choosing the By Selected Picture (in Wizardry®) option.

To see more of Lee's work, visit his web site at:

http://www.eclipse.net/~gaskins/Index.html

NOTE: This setting does not affect your saved game file or your character's portrait in Wizardry®, it's just to add a little flair to WizEdit©.

 

3.4  Items

By default the items (on the Items screen) are grouped by like items (i.e. you can find all the Maps in one list, or all of the Thrown Weapons in one list). If you have trouble finding a specific item, you can switch to an alphabetized list. See the Items, Quantity and Equipped/Not Equipped discussions for more specific details about items.
 
 

3.5  Path

If you installed your version of Wizardry® in the default path or directory, you should never need to use this option.  If not, when you launch this program, you will notice a message stating that WizEdit© is unable to locate the "scenario" file.  This is simply let you know that I could not find your copy of Wizardry®, and thus, you will not be able to see any Wizardry-related pictures or graphic. These include the Wizardry character portraits on the Character Selection screen, and the Item Information (pop-up) window and the item icons on the Items screen.

To fix that little problem, select this option and provide the location of your copy of Wizardry®.  Then, when you return to the items or character selection screens, you will see the correct graphics.  If you still have problems, you may want to refer to the Gold vs. Crusaders section of this document.

4.  CHOOSING YOUR SAVEGAME FILE

Here you may use the Drive, Directory, and File Mask (such as *.sgm, for Wizardry® Gold users) boxes to navigate to the saved game file of your choice. Once you select a saved game (by clicking on it) you will see the ‘Continue’ button become enabled. Pressing CONTINUE or DOUBLE-CLICKING on the Saved Game File will take you to the character selection screen.

When you return here after making changes, there is one important thing you need to know: all of the changes that you have made need to be written back to your saved game file. Up to this point, all of the changes that you have made are only temporary.  To permanently save your changes, see Saving Your changes below.

NOTE: If there are any unusual "characters" in your characters name (anything other than letters or numbers) or you have less than 6 characters in your party, you will see a prompt asking you if you have a certain number of characters in your party. If the number is correct press ‘Yes’, otherwise press ‘No’.

 

4.1  Exiting the Application

If you want to discard your changes, you can choose EXIT or you can select another saved game file. In either case, you will be prompted to first save your changes, if you have made any (or healed/restored your characters).
 

4.2  Saving your changes  (only active in the Live/Registered version)

After you have finished editing your characters and return to this screen, you will notice that the ‘Save’ and ‘Save & Exit’ buttons are now enabled. Pressing SAVE will save your changes, by writing them back to your saved game file. After doing so, you may choose another file to edit or make more changes to the same file.  Pressing SAVE & EXIT will save any changes you have made by writing them back to your saved game file and then exit the program.

 

5.    CHARACTER SELECTION

From this screen you must select the character you wish to edit. Simply clicking on the character's portrait or name will select a given character. After selecting a character, pressing any of the four "area" buttons will take you to it's associated screen. For example, pressing SKILLS will take you to the Skills Screen, pressing SPELLS will take you to the Spells Screen, … you get the picture.

You can tell which character, if any, is selected by noting if he or she is ‘depressed’. Not literally of course, but the border around the character will appear and their picture will appear to depress. Just try it, you'll see. Also, the character's name will appear in the window title (in the upper left-hand corner) on subsequent screens. So, when you select "Joe" and edit his items, the window title will say "Editing - Joe".

After you have made all the changes you wish to (to one or more characters), pressing DONE will take you back to the File Selection screen, where you can save your changes. Or you may want to take a trip back to the File Selection screen periodically to save your changes, perhaps after finishing up with each character. It's really up to you.

NOTE: Character portraits are displayed based on the "Character Portraits" setting. By default, you will see some awesome portraits based on the character's profession. If you prefer, you may choose the standard portraits from Wizardryâ . See Settings for more details.
 
 

5.1  Base Statistics

Tired of hacking and slashing your way to the next level? Can't seem to find the experience points you need? Tired of waiting for your character to make 14 in Speed, so he can become a Samurai? Or are you just greedy and want more gold? Well, your search is over, just click on BASE STATISTICS and they are yours for the taking!

From this screen, just select the attribute or number to modify and do it. When you are done, pressing DONE will save your changes or pressing CANCEL will discard them.

NOTE: See the special note on limitations for more information.
 
 

5.2  Skills

Do you feel slighted than only one of your characters got Snakespeed or Reflextion? Do you find your Ranger longing for Eagle Eye? Can't stand "learning" firearms? Was one of your characters bad and you just feel like smiting him? Wait no more, now you can have all these skills at maximum proficiency (or take some away).

Simply click on the skill you want to modify and change it. Or press MAXIMIZE to set all skills to 100 (the highest useful value). When you are done, pressing DONE will save your changes or pressing CANCEL will discard them.
 

NOTE: See the special note on limitations for more information
 
WARNING:  Setting all skill values to 100, on some older versions of Wizardry®, can cause the game to lock up the next time you gain a level and try to distribute skill points.  Not to worry, there is a patch for this problem, in the form of a file named WGUP.exe.  You can download the file from Sir-Tech's web site at:

http://www.sir-tech.com/support/UPDATES.html#WGPC

 

5.3  Spells

Did you switch classes too soon? Is your level 99 Ninja never going to learn those last few Mage or Priest spells? Just need more spell points? You've come to the right place.

On this screen you can select any or all spells (or take some away) and increase your spell points in all categories. To give your character a specific spell, CLICK into the appropriate window and highlight the desired spell (scroll down if necessary). Pressing the SPACE BAR or DOUBLE-CLICKING will select (or de-select) the highlighted spell. You can hold down the space bar to select all spells in the current window or press SELECT ALL to select all spells.

When you are done, pressing DONE will save your changes or pressing CANCEL will discard them.

NOTE: See the special note on limitations for more information
 
 

5.4  Items

Tired of opening the Gorrors chests, again and again, trying for an Excaliber? Can't find that last flower to make the Snakespeed potion? Did you lose your Thermal Pineapple (like Patrick) or just want an "unlimited" one? Do your two Faerie Ninjas keep fighting over your only Cane of Corpus? Do you feel left out, because you cannot get items like the Diamond Ring, since you didn't import your characters? Your troubles are over; those items can now be yours.

You will see that your character's current items (1 through 20) are displayed on the right-hand side of the screen. The words "Empty Slot" will appear anywhere your character has room for spare items. On the left-hand side of the screen, you will see a listing of available items.

Giving your character an item is a two-step process:

By default, the item list is sorted alphabetically, within "like groups". So, if you are looking for a better Helmet, click the ARMOR tab, then click the HELM button. And voila! You now have a list of just the helmets. And if you are looking for a certain Key, click the ITEMS tab then click the KEYS button. Under any of the tabs, you may select the ‘All’ button, to see all items in that category.

LEFT-CLICKING on any item, in the list, will display the Item Information pop-up window containing a fairly thorough listing of the item's attributes and also show the item's icon. As soon as you move your mouse off of the item, the pop-up display will disappear.

If you click on an item in the list (and don't move your mouse), then use your arrow keys to scroll up and down, you will be able to scroll through the items, continuously displaying the pop-up information window. This is a great way to compare like item's attributes or just see what many of the items "do".

If you have any trouble finding a specific item, you can click on SETTINGS, then ITEMS, to change the sort order of the items to alphabetical. After doing so, the list will look somewhat different, but the functionality is basically the same.

The subtle differences are 1) CLICKING any node (the ‘+’ signs) will expand that node and show you all of its items. And 2) LEFT or RIGHT-CLICKING an item will pop-up the additional information window and the icon for that item.

I recommend that after you save your changes, go into Wizardry® and re-equip any weapons or armor. Although the pictures and words will look correct, for the items to take full effect, you should re-equip them from within Wizardry®. See the discussion on the default setting for Equipped Items, for more information.

NOTE: By default, all "quantified" items (i.e. Arrows, Potions, Ankhs, etc.) have a quantity of 250. You can change this from the Settings screen, using the Quantity option, to "unlimited" (the quiver is always full, or never empty, depending on your point of view) or any number (less than 250) that you want. So, if you want an Ankh that doesn't (ever) vanish after it is invoked, you can give yourself and unlimited Ankh.
 
 

6. HISTORY

Let me give you a little bit of history on how this add-on evolved. After playing Crusaders of the Dark Savant© (CDS) for countless hours and finally beating it, I of course saved off the entire directory, in anticipation of using the saved game files, when the next version came out. A couple years later, my wife bought me (with my encouragement) Wizardry Gold©, thinking it was the "next" version of Wizardry® (i.e. Wizardry® VIII).

You can imagine my disappointment when I realized that it was just CDS for Windowsâ , and my horror at finding that somewhere in the past 2 years, I had wiped out any previous trace of CDS.

I resigned myself to another 3-4 months of sleep deprivation (replaying the game), knowing I would not want to start with "fresh" characters in Wizardry® VIII. But then I decided to try something different – figure out the saved game file layout, edit it and create "super-characters". I figured it should take me less time than actually re-playing the whole game.
 

Initially, I was right. Using two computers (one to play the game and one to edit the saved game files, byte by painstaking byte) after about 2 or 3 weeks I had a pretty good idea of the saved game layout and a crude interface for editing some of the basic stuff. After proving that my edited characters "worked", I moved on. VisualBasicâ 4.0 was calling me and this was a great way to for me to learn it. I had already learned about 10 programming languages, including VB 1.0, so what was one more? And porting an existing DOS-based application that I had already written (in Clipper, for those who care to know and/or laugh) would be a snap.

By the time I finished the Visual Basic® version, which was more much more robust than the Clipper version, I could have played and finished CDS again (at least once). About that time is when the idea to "take this to market" came about. But Wizardry® VIII was still a ways off, so I had time to wait. You see, my thinking was to market it for Wizardry® VIII – you know, "Give your Wizardry® VII characters the BOOST they need, before you import them into Wizardry® VIII". It never occurred to me that people would want it just to play Wizardry® VII or that people were even still playing it. I guess I should have got on the Internet sooner and started reading bulletin boards.

Then 1998 rolled in and whispers of a next Wizardry® release were heard. I dusted off the old code, got the 32-bit version of Visual Basic® and gave the old program another facelift. I also learned (again to my horror) that some people had already put out shareware versions of character editors for CDS! Well, my hat is off to them, I know it was no easy task. Really.

At this point, I had to ask myself, "With shareware versions out there, why would someone buy mine?" I figure there are 5 reasons:

I wanted to say mine is also more complete or robust, but I thought that might be misleading. The other versions have capabilities that I did not include in my version, (i.e. Healing and Change Location) but I left these out intentionally. I figure, if your character is dead, stoned, paralyzed or otherwise incapacitated, you can fix that within the game. And if I gave you control over everything AND changing location, it could ruin the game, what fun would be left for you?

Well, maybe I’ll include those in the next version J

As for other "missing" features, I won't give your character a sex change, and no DNA-splitting or gene-splicing to switch races either. If you need changes that drastic, I suggest you start a new game, with the character types you really want.
 
 

7.0  HOW TO

7.1  Making a Backup

 To make a backup copy of your saved game (something I highly recommend), follow these simple steps:

7.2  Creating a Shortcut

To create a shortcut to easily run WizEdit©, follow these simple steps:

7.3  Giving Different Quantities of Items

If you get here looking for help, don't feel bad – this items and quantities thing threw me the first time I tried it – and I wrote the code! Here you will find a step-by-step walkthrough to show you how to give different quantities of items to the same character.

As previously mentioned, in other parts of the documentation, you can choose to give your characters varying quantities or charges of quantified items (like a quiver of arrows) and charged items (like an Ankh).

To give a character 50 arrows and an Ankh with 3 charges, follow these steps:

7.4  Changing Your Display Settings

If you are running WizEdit© and cannot see the whole screen or the screens look "bad" (i.e. the background is speckled, or the File List box background is a checkerboard, or the character portraits are washed out), you will need to change your display settings. Here is how to do that: